Friday, January 29, 2010

American Idol' guest judges vs. regular judges

Are the guest judges this season ready to rumble or is there some editing trickery at hand? On Tuesday night, we had Kara DioGuardi and Katy Perry "downright catty," as host Ryan Seacrest referred to their behavior.

Last night, Neil Patrick Harris took on Simon Cowell in a "showdown." Again, those are Seacrest's words. Real? Or editing magic?

In any case, it's fun to watch. As if Harris needed more public support, the triple-threat performer was not shy about disagreeing with Cowell or calling him out.

A few examples:

To one contestant, Harris said: "I thought you were great!" To which Cowell replied: "Got absolutely nothing out of that audition, I'm afraid."

Then Harris told one contestant: "I found it really boring!" And Simon retorted: "A bit rude."

A funny montage of the two of them ensued with Cowell rolling his eyes after a contestant told Harris that she loves him. Did he really? Or was that cut from another moment in the long hot Dallas day?

"I'm scared to disagree with you," Harris told Simon at another point. "Geez, Louise, invite a guest judge on..." The rest, unfortunately for us, was inaudible.

As far as DioGuardi and Perry were concerned, Perry at one point threatened to throw Coke in DioGuardi's face and DioGuardi in one instance cried: "We used to be friends!"

During a phone interview with Seacrest on his KIIS-FM radio show Wednesday, DioGuardi said she thought it was all "really funny" and she was surprised that "people actually think I was upset about that."

One person who didn't buy it was Avril Lavigne, who also guest-judged on Tuesday night and was in Seacrest's studio during the phone call.